Issue Position: Labor

Issue Position

I am confused at those that want to block efforts of workingpeople to earn a livable wage with benefits that allows them to live a productive life for themselves and their families without government assistance. Isn't the goal to cut government spending? Wouldn't it be a great step to cut government spending by ensuring that working people make enough to not require assistance from government agencies.

I am a union member and I am proud to have worked my way up to become a union leader. I fight for workers to make a livable wage and benefits where they can live a comfortable life, provide for their families, have health care and be able to work for pension that allows them to retire with dignity, all this without having to rely on government assistance to obtain these goals.

Businesses and unions can work together to make this viable for both sides of a collective bargaining agreement. Unions understand that if a company is not profitable, it is not going to survive but unions also understand that a business can get better qualified and productive workers by paying a liveable wage with benefits. Unions also understand that they need to provide a trained, skilled and productive workforce for businesses to be profitable while they earning liveable wages.

As a union leader, I work to see that everyone make a liveable wage, so that no one would require government assistance to be able to feed their family through food stamps. I want them to earn enough to give their children opportunities to live the life they choose to pursue, be able to pay for a quality education that leads them to the life they strive to live. More workers earning higher wages will increase the tax base without raising tax rates. Less people requiring government assistance will decrease the need to for taxes on working people and businesses. I would like to see tax breaks be made available to businesses that provide jobs to those that earn wages and have benefits that ensure that government assistance will not be required by their workers.

I would like to see everyone have affordable health care, so that they do not have to rely on government assistance through medicare or have no health care and drive up health care costs to everyone else that have to make up for the uninsured. If all employers had affordable health care available to their employees, there would be no need for the government involvement providing health care. In addition, people having available preventative health care would allow them to live a healthier life, miss less time at work, making them more productive for businesses and hopefully prevent major health problems for not only the health of working people and their families but reduce major illnesses and conditions that drive up health care costs also.

A company looks at more than just your wages when determining how much it costs them per hour to be on the job. Wages are just the beginning, taxes, workmen' s compensation, and any benefits are factored in to what the company pays per hour you are on the job. So when you hear of someone getting their health care for free, paid by their employer, it is not true. The money to provide the health care is money that could be paid in wages to the employee but is instead put into health care.

As with health care, employers that provide pensions for their employees do not provide this benefit for free. Wages that could be paid to workers on their check is instead put into accounts for members to use to live on after they retire. I would like to see everyone be able to earn a pension that allows them to retire with dignity and not rely on government and taxpayers to care for them in their years after retirement. I think their should be protections put on working peoples pensions to ensure that money they gave up in wages while working their entire lives is not taken away in their later years.

What unions truly fight for is that working people be able to; go to work in a safe work environment so that they return home to their families each day the same as when they left, make a liveable wage to provide for their families, health care for the health of their families and a pension that allows them to retire with dignity. Unions also have the interest of the businesses they work for in mind, they understand that if the company is not profitable that the jobs will not be there for the workers. This is the whole basis of a collective bargaining agreement, which is made between the union and the businesses. Each side is at the negotiations and come to an agreement that is best for both sides. Its only when the two stop working together or one or both do not live up to the agreement that issues arise.

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